Tomi wrote:
> The original reason for axports was that interfaces could only be
> differentiated by the interface callsign. There was no way to tell the
> kernel to "open a connection through device ax0". It needed to be done
> by telling the kernel to "open a connection through the interface having
> hardware address N0CALL". And this still is the default method.
IIRC we didn't have a way to get the MAC address easily from an interface
back then.
> Now we have bind-to-device and settable interface names so we can start
> thinking whether all this is needed. (This btw raises another question:
> with the current state of things do we still need unique interface
> HW-addresses? If we could get rid of that restriction, it would help a
> lot.)
With SO_BINDTODEVICE (BTW, I think this still needs to get implemented in
NET/ROM and Rose) we need unique addresses only for applications that don't
use it yet (so far none uses it, though). I don't know whether NET/ROM
or Rose rely on it, though.
73,
Joerg Reuter http://poboxes.com/jreuter/
And I make my way to where the warm scent of soil fills the evening air.
Everything is waiting quietly out there.... (Anne Clark)
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